Other People's Books

There is something about a good used book that makes it even better, in my view, than a brand new one. Sometimes it's the experience of finding it (assuming you don't order it online from Amazon, abebooks.com, etc.). I find entering an appropriately musty used book store, looking through the stacks, finding a title you did not know you wanted, handling the book, viewing the cover and text, and reading a few pages to be far superior to "browsing" online.

When you purchase a previously owned book, it is also sometimes interesting to discover who possessed it before you. Last week I picked up a few books from one of my favorite used book stores off the downtown mall in Charlottesville and found evidence of the previous owners.

One of those was by the French Reformed theologian Pierre Ch. Marcel titled The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism, translated by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (T & T Clark, 1953). Aside from the stamp by "Lester H. Fink" of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, it also has a bold blue stamp reading "Donald Gray Barnhouse." Barnhouse (1895-1960) was a well-known Presbyterian minister and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. I assume Mr. Fink got hold of the book after Dr. Barnhouse, but I wonder how it came into his hands. The Wikipedia article on Barnhouse notes that he lived on an 82 acre farm in Doylestown. Was Fink a neighbor who got the book as a gift or did he buy it at an estate sale?

Here is the book:

Here's a recording of a sermon by Barnhouse on "Falling into Grace":

Another find was a paperback Christology of the Later Church Fathers in the Library of Christian Classics: Icthus Edition. The inside cover reveals the distinctive signature of David Bentley Hart (b. 1965) and is dated "1991." Hart is an Eastern Orthodox philosopher and theologian, much interested in patristics, who did his PhD at UVA. I am currently reading his translation of the New Testament (Yale, 2017). Not sure how this book got in the used bookstore. Maybe he upgraded to hardback or downsized along the way. Here is the book:

Here is a lecture by Hart dismantling the "New Atheists":

So, I have now "adopted" or "borrowed" books from the libraries of Barnhouse and Hart. Who knows? Maybe the fact that these men owned them will, by some kind of osmosis, make me preach and think better.

A new copy never would have done this.

JTR

David Bentley Hart on Peter's Tears and A New Vision of Human Dignity

Image: Guercino, Peter Weeping With Keys, c. 17th century

One of the most poignant moments in the Gospel account of Christ’s passion is Peter’s reaction upon his denial of Jesus:

And Peter went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62; cf. Matthew 26:75; Mark 14:72).

In The Story of Christianity, David Bentley Hart reflects on the significance of this description:

This may perhaps seem a rather unextraordinary episode, albeit a moving one. But therein lies its peculiar grandeur. To us today it seems only natural that a narrator should pause to record such an incident, and treat it, with certain gravity; but, in the days when the Gospels were written, the tears of a common man were not deemed worthy of serious attention. They would have been treated by most writers as, at most, an occasion for mirth. Only the grief of the noble could be tragic, or sublime or even fully human.

The tears of Peter were therefore indicative of a profound shift in moral imagination and sensibility. Something had become visible that had formerly been hidden from sight. For Christian thought, God had chosen to reveal himself among the least of men and women, and to exalt them to the dignity of his own sons and daughters. And, as a consequence, a new vision of the dignity of every soul had entered the consciousness of the Gentile world (18).

JTR

David Bentley Hart's Survey of the Patristic Age

I’m enjoying reading through David Bentley Hart’s popular level work The Story of the Christianity (Quercus, 2009). It has short chapters, clear overviews, and is filled with interest-grabbing anecdotes.

In the chapter titled “Age of the Fathers” (95-101), Hart provides a succinct overview of the key leaders in the immediate post-apostolic age.

Hart calls this “the golden age of Christian thought” which was “frequently marked by a kind of speculative audacity, that the theologians of later years, under the restrictions of more precisely defined dogmas, found all but impossible” (95).

Here is my summary of his survey:

“Apostolic Fathers”: the earliest successors of the apostles

Clement of Rome

Ignatius of Antioch

Polycarp of Smyrna

Apologists: defenders of Christianity in the pagan world

Quadratus, during the time of the emperor Hadrian

Aristides, during the time of the emperor Antonius Pius

Melito of Sardis, during the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius

Justin Martyr (c. 100-c. 165)

Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-c. 200)

Tertullian (c. 155-c. 230)

“High Patristic Age”

Clement of Alexandria

Origen

Athanasius, the scourge of Arianism

The Cappadocian Fathers: Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa

Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Note: Hart says, “Western Christianity is Augustinian Christianity.” As an Orthodox theologian, however, Hart unsurprisingly believes that Augustine misunderstood Paul.

Later Masters

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375-444)

Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662)
“Pseudo-Dionysius” (c. 500)

The End of the Patristic Period

The last father in the West is usually said to be Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636);

The last father in the East, John of Damascus (c. 675-749).

JTR